Wine Tour / Hawke Bay
Hawke Bay is one of the regions, where wine was produced in the early days in New Zealand. When I arrived at Napier, I went to the information center and I looked for a wine tour. Because I was travering by myself, it was quite hard to find a tour which was available for one person.

Prinsy's Wine Tours Hawke Bay / NZ$45 per person
I joined a half-day wine tour to visit 4 winerys. This was the only available tour during my stay at Napier! Although, the only reason why I came to Hawke Bay, because it's one of the premier wine making regions of New Zealand. However I almost missed the wine tour.

Great view over Hawke Bay from Te Mata Peak
I was picked up at my accommodation at 13:00p.m. I was the only person who took the tour on that day! Te Mata Peak is located near Havelock North, about 30km from Napier. We drove through a narrow winding and steep road to get to the top of the hill. Te Mata Peak is at a height of about 400meters. So there was 360 degree views over Hawke Bay, Hastings, Napier and the green hills from the top.
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Looking towards Hastings, Napier and Havelock North from the top of the hill. There was a wonderful landscape dotted with lots of vineyards and green fields.
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There was an information board on the top of the hill. I heard that the longest place-name in the world was in Hawke Bay.
It is "Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokai -whenuakitanatahu", which is the name of the hill near Mangaorapa. The meaning is...I'm not sure. Because it is Maori.

I happened to see a tandem paraglider departing from the top. I'd seen tandem paragliding at Queenstown before. At that time they had to run as fast as they could towards the edge of the cliff and then they could take off. It looked a little bit frightening. But here they didn't have to move and all they had to do was just wait for the wind. I think maybe I can do this!
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He waved to his familly and he appeared calm. But he looked really nervous on the hill slope while he was waiting to take off . Once airborne, he looked happy in the air! By the way, where do they land and how do they get back to the top of the hill?

Te MATA ESTATE since 1896
The first winery was Te MATE ESTATE, which was located in Havelock North area. I heard that it had been in business for over 100 years and it is a well-established winery. I saw a distributors list and there were lots of them around the world, including Japanese distributors. The building was surrounded by a beautiful green vineyard and it looked pretty good. I enjoyed tasting an extensive range of wine there!

ALPHA DOMUS
The second one. Each time I tasted some of the wine, I was asked how it tasted. The wines were absolutely delicious. But I didn't have any knowledge about the wine so it was hard to describe about the taste of the wine for me....
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She was very kind and she showed me a wine storage. I really want to get one barrel of wine! I wonder how long it would take to drink up the barrel by myself?